Class

SCNMaterial

A set of shading attributes that define the appearance of a geometry's surface when rendered.

Overview

When you create a material, you define a collection of visual attributes and their options, which you can then reuse for multiple geometries in a scene.

A material has eight visual properties, listed in Configuring Visual Properties, each of which defines a different part of SceneKit’s lighting and shading process. Each visual property is an instance of the SCNMaterialProperty class that provides a solid color, texture, or other 2D content for that aspect of SceneKit’s rendering. The material’s lightingModel property then determines the formula SceneKit uses to combine the visual properties with the lights in the scene to produce the final color for each pixel in the rendered scene. For more details on the rendering process, see Lighting Models.

You attach one or more materials to an instance of the SCNGeometry class using its firstMaterial or materials property. Multiple geometries can reference the same material. In this case, changing the attributes of the material changes the appearance of every geometry that uses it.

Topics

Creating a Material

init(mdlMaterial: MDLMaterial)

Creates a material from the specified Model I/O material object.

Choosing a Shading Model

var lightingModel: SCNMaterial.LightingModel

The lighting formula that SceneKit uses to render the material.

struct SCNMaterial.LightingModel

Configuring Visual Properties

var diffuse: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that manages the material’s diffuse response to lighting.

var ambient: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that manages the material’s response to ambient lighting.

var specular: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that manages the material’s specular response to lighting.

var normal: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that defines the nominal orientation of the surface at each point for use in lighting.

var reflective: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that defines the reflected color for each point on a surface.

var emission: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that defines the color emitted by each point on a surface.

var transparent: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that determines the opacity of each point in a material.

var multiply: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that provides color values that are multiplied with pixels in a material after all other shading is complete.

var ambientOcclusion: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that provides color values to be multiplied with the ambient light affecting the material.

var selfIllumination: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that provides color values representing the global illumination of the surface.

var metalness: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that provides color values to determine how metallic the material’s surface appears.

var roughness: SCNMaterialProperty

An object that provides color values to determine the apparent smoothness of the surface.

var displacement: SCNMaterialPropertyBeta

Customizing a Material

var name: String?

A name associated with the material.

var shininess: CGFloat

The sharpness of specular highlights. Animatable.

var fresnelExponent: CGFloat

A factor affecting the material’s reflectivity. Animatable.

var transparency: CGFloat

The uniform transparency of the material. Animatable.

var transparencyMode: SCNTransparencyMode

The mode SceneKit uses to calculate transparency for the material.

enum SCNTransparencyMode

The modes SceneKit uses to calculate the opacity of pixels rendered with a material, used by the transparencyMode property.

var isLitPerPixel: Bool

A Boolean value that determines whether SceneKit performs lighting calculations per vertex or per pixel. Animatable.

var isDoubleSided: Bool

A Boolean value that determines whether SceneKit should render both front and back faces of a surface. Animatable.

var cullMode: SCNCullMode

The mode determining which faces of a surface SceneKit renders. Animatable.

enum SCNCullMode

The modes SceneKit uses to determine which polygons to render in a surface, used by the cullMode property.

var blendMode: SCNBlendMode

The mode that determines how pixel colors rendered using this material blend with other pixel colors in the rendering target.

enum SCNBlendMode

Modes that describe how SceneKit blends source colors rendered using a material with destination colors already in a rendering target, used by the blendMode property.

var locksAmbientWithDiffuse: Bool

A Boolean value that determines whether the material responds identically to both ambient and diffuse lighting. Animatable.

var writesToDepthBuffer: Bool

A Boolean value that determines whether SceneKit produces depth information when rendering the material.

var readsFromDepthBuffer: Bool

A Boolean value that determines whether SceneKit uses depth information when rendering the material.

var colorBufferWriteMask: SCNColorMaskBeta

struct SCNColorMaskBeta

var fillMode: SCNFillModeBeta

enum SCNFillModeBeta